Well, my nerves are normal.

Also, the answer to “Will this hurt?” is not “Maybe a little,” it is “Oh, hell, yeah.”

They did a series of increasing shocks at various key points from a little medical taser. The first one was a mild annoyance. The second one was startling and painful. The third one was like grabbing an electric fence. Passers-by could track the process by the sounds–“Ahh! AHHH! OH, SWEET JESUS!” and “Ow. Urgh! FUCK!”

“It’s all normal,” said the nurse, “we can probably just skip the second test, but I’ll check with the doctor.”

“It’s all normal,” said the doctor, “but we can do a second test to get a fuller picture.” And then they brought out needles, which they assured me would not hurt like the taser.

They were correct. It hurt in all new ways. A needle I could take–just barely–but a needle you wiggle around inside my hand while I move my fingers, cause nasty stabby thin little pains? No. How many of these? At least eight, you say? No. Ursula has had a stressful few weeks already, thank you–taser or needles we can handle, but not both at once. Ursula declines to have the second test and flees to the car to have mild hysterics. I’m not generally prone to such, but now and again, everbody is allowed to snap, provided they do it discreetly and don’t involve automatic weapons. Then I attempted to soothe said hysterics with root beer from lunch. Unfortunately, I forgot I’d left it in the car while I waited inside, and a hit of 95-degree root beer exiting through the nose does nothing much to get you back on an even keel, although I daresay the starlings in the tree I was parked under thought it was the funniest thing they’d seen all week.

Initially, I felt ashamed of my wussiness, but the site of the needle now aches like a mother and is swollen–eight of those, and I’d have gone on a one-handed killing spree. Unngh. Ganesh preserve me–I’ll wear a wrist brace happily, but I cannot endure weird freaky poking merely to prove that gee, stuff really is normal, all right.

Brrr. I’m gonna go tear apart my studio until I feel better.

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